Crosby Kemper III - Chairman of the Board

Crosby Kemper III is the CEO of the Kansas City Public Library and former CEO of UMB Financial Corporation. Educated at Pem-Day, Andover, Eton, and Yale, he has taught English at Sichuan University in Chengdu, China, and been a bookseller in Grand Central Station in New York City. He is the editor of, and contributor to, Winston Churchill: Resolution, Defiance, Magnanimity, Good Will, published by the University of Missouri Press. In 2003-04, he chaired the Commission on the Future of Higher Education in Missouri for Gov. Bob Holden. He has served on the board of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which operates Monticello, and on the boards of the Kansas City Symphony, the Black Archives of Mid-America, Union Station, and Lapham's Quarterly. He helped Marilyn Strauss found the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival and served as its first board chair. He also founded and chaired the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival. He cofounded and is chairman of the Show-Me Institute, a free-market public policy think tank for the state of Missouri. He received a 2008 Difference Maker Award from The Urban League of Kansas City. In 2008, he and the Kansas City Public Library received the Gold Medal for Libraries from the Institute for Museum and Library Services at the White House from former librarian Laura Bush.

Kevin Short - Vice Chairman of the Board

Kevin Short is the co-founder and managing partner and CEO of Clayton Capital Partners, a Saint Louis based investment banking firm specializing in merger and acquisition advisement. In 2007, Thomson Financial, FactSet Mergerstat, and Investment Dealers Digest all ranked Clayton Capital Partners as a top U.S. M&A firm. Recognized as a leader in purchase and sale transactions of mid-size businesses spanning a wide range of industries, Short has orchestrated more than 150 purchase/sale transactions with an aggregate value of more than $1 billion. As an expert in mergers and acquisitions, Short writes and speaks frequently on the topic to groups of business owners, advisors to business owners, and academics. Groups include: Business Enterprise Institute, Inc., the St. Louis Association of Evaluation Professionals, Edward D. Jones, and Washington University. In addition to contributing to various national trade and business publications, he is the co-author of Cash Out Move On: Get Top Dollar And More Selling Your Business. Short devotes his free time first to his family, and second to the education of children from low-income families. He is an active board member for Today & Tomorrow Educational Foundation, the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis, and the Board of Education for the Archdiocese of St. Louis.

Rex Sinquefield - President

Rex Sinquefield is the co-founder and past co-chairman of Dimensional Fund Advisors Inc., a registered investment advisor with over $100 billion under management. In the 1970s, he co-authored (with Roger Ibbotson) a series of papers and books titled Stocks, Bonds, Bills & Inflation. These works provided the first seminal data on the performance of the financial market in the United States. At American National Bank of Chicago, he pioneered many of the nation's first index funds. Since 2003, he has served as a member of the editorial board of the Financial Analysts Journal. Sinquefield is a trustee of the St. Vincent Home for Children in Saint Louis, a member of the investment committee of the Archdiocese of Saint Louis, and a life trustee of DePaul University. He serves on the boards of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Missouri Botanical Garden, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and Saint Louis University. He received his B.S. from Saint Louis University and his M.B.A. from the University of Chicago in 1972.

W. Bevis Schock - Secretary

Bevis Schock is a lawyer in solo practice in Saint Louis. He founded the Shrink Missouri Government PAC, which challenged the constitutionality of Missouri's campaign finance limits before the United States Supreme Court in 2000. He also brought a challenge to the plaintiff's attorney's fees in the tobacco litigation of the late 1990s. He was one of three people who started the Shakespeare Festival of Saint Louis and served on the Board of Directors for ten years. In his day-to-day work he handles a broad array of matters including civil rights, real estate, personal injury and criminal. He received a B.A. in history from Yale University and a J.D. from the University of Virginia.

Joseph Forshaw - Treasurer

Joseph Forshaw is president and CEO of the Saint Louis-based Forshaw, a family-owned business founded in 1871 specializing in the retail sale of home furnishings, as well as the manufacture and national distribution of fireplace-related building products. He has served for several years as an advisory director for Commerce Bank, and is the managing partner of several family real estate partnerships. An alumnus of Saint Louis University High School, Forshaw received both his B.A. and J.D. degrees from Saint Louis University.

Stephen F. Brauer - Director

Stephen Brauer is Chairman and CEO of Hunter Engineering Company, which sells computer-based automotive service equipment and employs more than a thousand people. From 2001 to 2003, he served as U.S. Ambassador to Belgium. Mr. Brauer has served on numerous charitable and civic boards, including the Saint Louis Area Council of Boy Scouts, Saint Louis Art Museum and the Missouri Botanical Garden. He is a past member of the National Board of the Smithsonian Institution and a former member of Missouri's 21st Judicial District Commission. Mr. Brauer is a trustee of Washington University in Saint Louis, a member of its executive committee, and a part owner of the Saint Louis Cardinals.

James G. Forsyth III - Director

James Forsyth is President and CEO of Moto, Inc., which operates the MotoMart chain of gas stations and convenience stores. He is also president and CEO of two other family owned businesses, Forsyth Carterville Coal Company and Missouri Real Estate. He serves on the boards of Saint Luke's Hospital, YMCA of Southwestern Illinois, and Commerce Bank of Saint Louis. He has served on the boards of Webster University and Forsyth School. He holds a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Virginia.

Louis Griesemer - Director

Louis Griesemer is president and CEO of Springfield Underground, Inc. He holds a bachelor's degree in applied math and computer science from the Washington University School of Engineering. After graduating, Griesemer immediately went to work in the family business as a mine safety and quality control foreman. During this period, Griesemer also broadened his education by taking evening business classes at Drury University. Working in a small business, he has had the opportunity to wear many hats, including production, sales, accounting, and management. Griesemer also sits on a number of other boards: the Advisory Board for the UMB Bank in Springfield; the Executive Board of the Ozarks Trails Council, Boy Scouts of America; and the board of the National Stone, Sand, and Gravel Association, which he chaired from 2007 to 2008.

Hon. Robert M. Heller - Director

Robert Heller is a retired judge who served for 28 years on the Shannon County Circuit Court in Missouri, where he presided over a broad range of civil and criminal cases both locally and throughout the state. He holds a J.D. from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a B.A. in Philosophy from Northwestern. He has served as a member of several Missouri court-related committees and as a district chair for the Boy Scouts of America.

Michael Podgursky - Director

Michael Podgursky is a professor of economics at the University of Missouri–Columbia, where he served as department chair from 1995 to 2005, and is a Fellow of the George W. Bush Institute at Southern Methodist University. He has published numerous articles and reports on education policy and teacher quality.  He serves on advisory boards for various education organizations, and editorial boards of two education research journals.   From 1980 to 1995, he was on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He earned his bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Missouri Columbia and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wisconsin Madison.

Gerald A. Reynolds - Director

Gerald A Reynolds is general counsel for the Eastern Division of American Water Works, Inc. Earlier, he served as assistant general counsel at Kansas City Power & Light Company and as a deputy associate attorney general in the U.S. Department of Justice. In 2004, President George W. Bush designated Reynolds to serve as chairman of the U.S.Commission on Civil Rights, and in 2002 appointed him assistant secretary of education for the Office of Civil Rights. Reynolds received his law degree from Boston University School of Law and he received his B.A. in history from City University of New York, at York College.

Steve Trulaske - Director

Steve Trulaske joined his family business, True Manufacturing Company, full time in 1982 after completing his MBA at The Ohio State University. One of his first assignments was to grow and develop True’s international business along with managing its corporate cash and investments. In 1987, Steve assumed responsibility for the True division that sells glass door display cases to beverage companies worldwide. Key customers included the Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola companies. In 1989, Steve took on the added responsibility for developing True’s international commercial food service refrigeration division. In this position, Steve became heavily involved in product development. True now builds more than 800 refrigerator and freezer models that are sold in more than 70 countries. Today, Steve is the sole owner and manager of all True entities. In this role, he has recently launched a new effort to develop the residential refrigeration market.